Chapter 8 - The Ghost on the Water
For three hours, the ocean tried to kill me.
The storm slowly began to lose its fury as the front moved east toward Puerto Rico, but the swell remained heavy, tossing me like a piece of driftwood across the open water. My lips were numb, my teeth chattering so violently I bit the inside of my cheek until I tasted blood.
I didn't let myself sleep. Every time my eyelids grew heavy, every time the darkness threatened to pull me under, I forced myself to picture Flynn’s bloody face when I smashed that glass into his cheekbone. I pictured my father’s smile when he walked me down the aisle. I pictured Fiona laughing as she called me a "poor idiot."
I am not dying out here, I repeated like a mantra. I am coming back for every single one of you.
At three in the morning, the rain finally stopped. The heavy cloud cover broke apart, revealing a pale, silver moon that cast a cold ribbon of light across the calm ocean floor.
In the distance, a low, rhythmic thudding sound echoed across the water.
Thud... thud... thud...
Not the deep rumble of a luxury yacht's diesel engine. The sharp, metallic chop of heavy marine blades.
I lifted my head off the foam ring.
A hundred yards away, sitting low in the water, was a fifty-foot dark grey hull with no navigation lights. A fishing vessel—one of the unregistered long-line tuna boats that operated out of the Dominican coast.
I reached for the strobe light attached to my life ring and flipped the switch on.
The brilliant white light began to flash rhythmically across the water, blinding in the clear night air.
Flash. Flash. Flash.
On the deck of the grey vessel, a powerful searchlight clicked on. The brilliant white beam swept across the ocean floor, bouncing over the wave crests until it locked directly onto my floating orange ring.
"AHUY!" a deep voice shouted across the water in Spanish. "THERE! MAN OVERBOARD!"
I heard the splash of a throw-line hitting the water nearby.
"Grab it!" a voice bellowed.
I reached out with my numb fingers, catching the floating yellow polypropylene rope, and wrapped it twice around my wrists.
Strong hands pulled the line back toward the vessel. A minute later, I was hauled up over the low wooden gunwale of the fishing boat, collapsing onto the wet deck among coils of thick rope and smell of iced fish.
Three men in oilskin overalls crowded around me. The captain—a weathered Dominican man with a thick grey beard and a scar across his brow—knelt beside me, wrapping a heavy wool blanket around my shivering shoulders.
"Dios mío, niña," he breathed, staring at my torn silk nightgown, my bruised face, and the blood dried across my forehead. "What happened to you? Where is your ship?"
I looked up at him, my breath coming in ragged, freezing gasps, my eyes burning with a cold, terrifying clarity.
"My name is Cassandra Vance," I said, my voice hoarse, scraping against my dry throat like sandpaper. "My husband tried to murder me for my father's estate. What is your name, Captain?"
The man blinked, surprised by the fierce, absolute authority in my broken voice. "Captain Carlos Ramirez," he said slowly.
"Captain Ramirez," I said, leaning forward and gripping his oilskin jacket with my shivering hand. "My father is Edward Vance. If you take me to the nearest port with a secure satellite phone, he will wire one million dollars to your ship’s account by sunrise."
Captain Ramirez looked at my bruised face, then looked out at the empty horizon where the Vance Voyager had vanished three hours ago.
May you like
"One million?" he asked softly.
"Two million," I corrected, my voice dropping into a register of cold, absolute iron. "If you help me get back to Miami before my husband files the police report."
